


Light

by h0ldthiscat



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Disney World, F/M, Requests, Splash Mountain, pretty fluffy, prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 08:18:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4599558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h0ldthiscat/pseuds/h0ldthiscat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Come on, who doesn’t love Disney World?”</p>
<p>She shoots him a pointed look. “I don’t dislike it. I just, like a sane human being, hate August in Florida.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light

“Smile, Scully. It’s the happiest place on Earth.”

“Yeah, it’s also the muggiest place on Earth.” She squints into the sun and puts a hand over her eyes. “Are you taking the damn picture or not?”

“I will when you smile,” Mulder calls from twenty feet away, looking through the viewfinder on the disposable camera, framing her under the Adventureland sign.

Sighing, Scully flashes her best Cheshire grin and Mulder snaps the photo.

“What’s got you in such a sour mood?” he asks, unwrapping the Mickey Mouse-shaped ice cream bar he’d bought at the last vendor for an unreasonably high price.

“Well call me crazy, Mulder, but I don’t love chasing suspects through amusement parks I have to pay $95 to get into.”

“The Bureau will refund your money, Scully.”

“Ah, but can they refund my time?”

“Come on, who doesn’t love Disney World?”

She shoots him a pointed look. “I don’t dislike it. I just, like a sane human being, hate August in Florida.”

“Why don’t you lose the layers?” Mulder teases, tugging on the sleeve of her denim shirt.

She wrinkles her nose, making her thin-framed sunglasses move up and down on her nose. “No, I’ve only got a–oh, nevermind.”

They pause at a bench and she unbuttons her shirt, then shucks it off in one swift motion and ties the arms around her waist. Distantly, she laments not bringing sunscreen and knows the freckles on her shoulders will have some companions by the end of the day. When she looks up, she sees Mulder avert his eyes from the scooping neckline of her tanktop.

She sniffs. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” He extends his snack to her. “Ice cream?”

“I can’t even think about dairy right now.”

“Well how about…” He looks around for a moment, and then a smile breaks across his face that she knows means trouble.

“What?” she asks reproachfully.

“You’ll be glad we splurged on the fast passes, Scully. We’ll wanna skip the line on this one.”

“Mulder, wha–” She follows the line of his long finger, pointing up ahead of them where she sees the sign for Splash Mountain. “Mulder, I said I wasn’t gonna do rides with you!”

“Okay, hold on. I’m gonna close my eyes, and can you say that again, but this time a little breathier?”

She smacks his arm.

X

“How many times have you been to Disney World, Mulder?” she asks as they shuffle through the line, ducking in and out of range of the misting fans.

“Twice,” he answers proudly. “Once with a family friend when I was 10 and once with my high school marching band.”

A grin breaks over her face. “You never told me you were in marching band.”

“And I’ll have you know I was first oboe my junior year.” He’s proud, she can tell. It’s sweet.

“That’s sweet,” she says, and then realizes she is blushing for reasons she can’t articulate.

X

“It’s a common misconception,” he tells her as a boat designed to look like a log pulls up on the track in front of them, “that the front seat is where you get the most wet. But actually, the front seat is a buffer zone. The way the car lands in the water causes most of the water to go up and over the heads of the people in the front, and the poor fools who thought they’d be safe in rows two and three get the brunt of it.”

“Thank goodness you’re here,” she intones dryly, but is silently thankful as they clamber into the front seat. Her plans for today do not involve wringing herself out in an overcrowded bathroom.

She doesn’t, as a rule, particularly enjoy roller coasters or any kind of ride that could potentially fling her hundreds of feet into the air. But this one seems nice. It is slow going, through the dark and blissfully air-conditioned inner workings of the ride’s facade. She’s sure the children and teens around her recognize the characters coming to life on either side of the small boat, judging from the ooh’s and aah’s rising up behind them, but she is suddenly zeroed in on Mulder’s thigh against hers. The ride is built for kids, she supposes, and his long legs aren’t exactly keeping to themselves.

She doesn’t say anything.

As the boat begins to slow its momentum on the underwater track in preparation for their drop, she feels her heart rate increase in spite of herself. She lets out an excited giggle as daylight pinholes in front of them.

“Hold on, Scully,” Mulder says in her ear, and then they are falling, and she feels her feet almost lift off the floor of the boat, but not quite. And then, with one wave of water, she is soaked. Unbelievably wet, drenched from head to toe.

She gasps and looks to Mulder, who is laughing like she’s never seen him laugh.

“You told me– Mulder– I swear to–” And then she can’t stop laughing either, body-shaking giggles, like she hasn’t laughed in a long time, maybe ever.

She grabs his hand suddenly, inexplicably, and doesn’t let go until they disembark the stupid boat shaped like a log back at the top of the mountain. He doesn’t make a comment about the way she knows her shirt is clinging to her stomach, but she can tell he wants to. And even though she is dreadfully waterlogged she feels, for the first time in years, like she is light.


End file.
